What Have You Submitted Lately?

Is your freelancing portfolio project-less? Maybe your proverbial pen has gone dry, maybe writing seems to be getting away from you… Perhaps you have a list of personal projects to work on, but they are just not on the sitting-down-to-write stage. Maybe is time to go out on a little hunt for inspiration.

Hunting for a project shifts our mindset, we go from inactivity to action.

As freelance writers, we should always be hunting for opportunities. Part of our downtime routine should be spent searching the websites of the online or print publications we enjoy as readers, follow them on SM and look for their open submissions. Browse and hone in on anything strike your fancy. Maybe you’ll feel immediately inspired by a topic you know and love. Maybe you’ll want to challenge yourself with a new subject or genre.

Hunting for a project puts a focus on choices, we go from scarcity to abundance.

I’m subscribed to the Freedom with Writing email list, and I highly recommend you join as well. They send weekly emails with info on everything writing related, from prized writing competitions to a catalog of open submission from various magazines.

Why if I submit and nothing happens? Well… definitely nothing happens when you don’t.

Okay, so they did not pick your story, essay or poem this time. But now you have a nice workable piece, a good stepping stone. Even if you put it aside and move on, you had to keep your mind focus on creative work, made something new out of a single idea, you would have created, which is essentially your life’s purpose.

Hunting for a project, finding something, going for it, writing and submitting, the whole shebang should be the end in itself.

Whenever that sneaky self-sabotaging voice jumps on you from a dark corner of your mind, kindly but firmly remind her that nothing you write could ever be a waste of time. If something doesn’t seem to land anywhere, it will always fall rightly in place in the practice category.

What is this hunt for submissions really about?

A new idea to tackle and work on. Our hands are numb, our minds are frozen. A new out of the left field idea might do the trick to wake our creative tools back up.

A set deadline. What we write for ourselves is less subjected to the pressure of a finite date. What we write for our clients do not. Submissions keep our writing on its toes, it works the muscles that need to be flexed and ready for the next client that comes our way.